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VALUE & fIDELITY
Guides Praise College for Excellence, Affordability, and Orthodoxy
• College Factual, a statistics-based guide that aims to “help students find and get great deals on the best fit colleges for them,” has ranked Thomas Aquinas College as No. 4 in the United States on its list of the 1,325 “Best Colleges for the Money.” For academics, the guide gives the College grades of “A” for its freshman SAT scores and freshman-retention rate, as well as an “A+” for its graduation rate. For affordability, College Factual describes the College’s net tuition as delivering a “great price” for families, while noting students’ low average debt level at graduation. The guide additionally awards Thomas Aquinas College grades of “A+” for value and for its student-loan default rate.
• In the newly released edition of The Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College, the Cardinal Newman Society recommends Thomas Aquinas College as one of 17 residential Catholic colleges nationwide with a strong Catholic identity. The 2018-19 publication lauds the College for its “impressive intellectual rigor,” as well as its “commitment to orthodox Catholicism,” noting that Thomas Aquinas College “was the first in a wave of new Catholic colleges born from the crisis of Catholic identity in American Catholic higher education.” Moreover, the College “still has the distinction of being the only Catholic college in America that teaches exclusively from [the] classic works of Western civilization.”
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Parents’ Day of Giving
Parents Help to Raise $176,910 in First Annual Campaign
For Thomas Aquinas College’s first annual Parents’ Day of Giving on May 1, the parents and grandparents of students past and present were challenged to raise $75,000. By day’s end, they had surpassed that total.
“When our anonymous benefactor agreed to match all gifts up to $75,000, we thought that was a very ambitious goal, and we would have been thrilled just to have met it,” says Robert Bagdazian, coordinator of the Thomas Aquinas College Parents’ Association. “But our parents exceeded even our most hopeful predictions.”
Parents and grandparents joined forces to give $101,910 to the College for the Parents’ Day of Giving, which — when combined with the matching gift — amounts to $176,910 in support of the Annual Fund.
“I am truthfully filled with joy by the response,” says the benefactor who made the matching gift. “Praise the Lord for working in the hearts of the parents to provide such support.”
Continue reading 
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“The Way, the Truth, and the Life”
Excerpts from Incoming Freshman’s Essay on Why She Chose Thomas Aquinas College
by Sarah Niblock
published by the Cardinal Newman Society
… “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). These words seemed to pound in my ears as my eyes closed, and the details of my visit to a faithful Catholic college came rushing back with incredible vividness.
“I am the way.” Chapel bells begin to toll, and I watch as dozens of students appear from dorm rooms and classrooms, hurrying to Mass on a Wednesday afternoon. I gaze around a busy dining hall to see students bowing their head before diving into their midday meal. I listen to a chaplain preach from the pulpit, encouraging and advising students about dating. I pass by sign-up sheets for students to pray at a local abortion clinic. I glimpse an elderly priest sitting with students at lunch, laughing and asking them about their day.
“I am the truth.” My head whips back and forth as I watch two students debate Rousseau’s ideologies regarding the role of government. I hear the patter of a chalkboard as I see a young student jump up to prove a Euclid proposition. I listen to a freshman class discuss how to logically discover the validity of an argument. I pass by a student who is intently studying his Bible, doing some extra research for his theology paper. …
“I am the life.” I see professors, along with their spouses and children, attending Sunday Mass at the campus chapel. I smile as a young man spots me heading to a classroom building, quickly pulling open the door for me … I overhear conversations between students, telling each other how former alumni have gone on to become doctors, lawyers, priests, sisters, engineers, and missionaries.…
Letting out a deep breath, I finally found the words that God had been whispering in my heart. “Here, at this college, you will find me.…”
Read the full essay
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Sarah Niblock
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FAITH IN ACTION
Highlights from the College’s Alumni Blog
• It was a reunion of sorts for Thomas Aquinas College alumni living in greater Phoenix on April 13. St. Mary’s Catholic High School hosted a reception and seminar for TAC alumni in the area, led by Dr. Andrew Seeley (’87), a tutor at the College and executive director at the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education, and Dr. Arthur Hippler (’89), a member of ICLE’s board of directors and the chairman of the Religion Department at Providence Academy in Plymouth, Minnesota. In attendance were some 40 graduates and their spouses, many of whom now share the gift of their classical education as teachers.
• The Cambridge Analytica saga, followed by Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony before Congress, has prompted, among many, a certain fatalism about privacy in the age of datamining. To which alumnus author K. E. Colombini (’85), writing in Crisis, proposes a (partial) return to “analog” technologies, such as books, board games, and newspapers, which allow for a slower, more deliberate and deliberative pace of life than their digital replacements. The cultural moment, he predicts, may be ripe for “a new realization of the unique value of the truly tangible in a world of touchscreens.”
• St. Agnes School in St. Paul, Minnesota, recently announced the newest member of its faculty: Sr. Mary Margaret O’Brien, O.P. (’00), who will be teaching at the elementary level. A member of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Sr. Mary Margaret will be joining two fellow graduates: Eileen (Keating ’93) Douglass, who teaches upper-level English, and Rev. Mark Moriarty (’95), the school’s superintendent. “I have taught elementary school for nine years in Colorado, Michigan, Florida, and California,” writes Sr. Mary Margaret. “I love to tell stories and help students fall in love with Our Lord!”
Faith in Action blog
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Alumni Gathering in Phoenix
K. E. Colombini (’85)
Sr. Mary Margaret O’Brien, O.P. (’00) |
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“HONOR THY MOTHER”
A Mother’s Day Novena of Masses
Beginning on Mother’s Day, May 13, and ending on May 21, the chaplains of Thomas Aquinas College will offer a novena of Masses in Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel. “The College has been offering a Christmas Novena for the last four years, as a way for our friends to pray for their loved ones and their intentions,” says President Michael F. McLean. “That novena has been so well received that we thought we would offer one for Mother’s Day, too.”
Each person enrolled in the Novena will receive a beautiful, personalized card from the College. Framed in Marian blue, the card features, on the front, a photo of the statue of Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom, that resides above the interior of the College Chapel’s main doors. Inside, the card informs recipients of their inclusion in the Novena, as well as the name of their sponsors. The cost for each card, which includes shipping and handling, is $5.
More than just a Mother’s Day greeting, the Novena card brings the promise of nine Holy Masses and the prayers of the students, faculty, chaplains, and staff of Thomas Aquinas College. “This is a wonderful way for our friends to include all their mothers, godmothers, grandmothers, and aunts in the spiritual life of the College,” says Dr. McLean. “We invite everyone to enroll, and hope all of our friends will join us in our prayers for the devoted women in our lives who give so much.”
Enrollments must be completed by 5:00 p.m.(PDT) on Friday, May 11.
Enroll now: thomasaquinas.edu/mom
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Our Lady,
Seat of Wisdom |
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